


hide your body (when the sunlight dies)

by WaifsandStrays



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: I promise, Multi, Trans Male Character, Zombie Apocalypse, i blame the discord for this, no one dies, the softest apocalypse ever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-02-04 13:08:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12771735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaifsandStrays/pseuds/WaifsandStrays
Summary: The world's gone to hell and the dead are crawling out of their graves. The Foxes must find a way to stay alive and together if they're going to make it through this.Part zombie AU, part Minyard twins character study, all pain!





	1. Aaron

**Author's Note:**

> I blame the kevaaron discord for this entirely. This could have lived on my Google docs for the rest of its days and I would have been happy. Anyway, if you're here, I hope you enjoy it and if anyone has anything that they think needs tagged, please let me know and I will update them!

The day that the world went to shit started like any other. They woke up at the ass crack of dawn, went to practice, fought and snarled at each other on and off the court, and went to class. The first hint that anything was wrong came in the middle of Aaron’s Biology class. The TA, a bored looking senior whose duties consisted of staring at her phone and nodding along with the professor’s lecture, had gone steadily paler until even the usually oblivious professor was staring.

“The… the-” Her voice was a cracked rasping thing, astonishment coloring every word. She held up her phone as if they all could possibly see it. “The dead people… They’re all- There’s something wrong with the dead people.”

The girl behind Aaron scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Oh my god, that's the worst acting I've ever seen.” She pointed her pen at the TA then at her own head, swirling it next to her temple. “You're crazy, girl.”

Aaron laughed along with the others, ignoring the pang of guilt at the thought of what Andrew would think of her antics. Medicated Andrew would have found it ironic and hysterical, unmedicated Andrew would have… Aaron didn't like to think about what unmedicated Andrew did to anyone, let alone people who made light of mental illness.

The TA’s face hardened, a scowl stretching her pink lips into a grimace. She elbowed the professor out of the way and closed out his PowerPoint, pulling up the web browser. A few clicks later and a grainy video filled the screen.

It showed a metal fence and beyond it a cemetery. Everything seemed normal at first. Graves in neat rows, a few dilapidated headstones and an ivy covered bench in the corner of the frame. Then there was a ripple in the ground, a small hill of earth pushing up and up and then a hand was clawing the ground, pulling and pulling until hunched shoulders and a bald, scabbed head broke the surface. The video cut off just as the face - or what was left of it - swung to the person filming. It was a mess of withered flesh and pus filled eye sockets, a gaping maw of rotten teeth and silent screaming.

Aaron gagged as a few girls around him bit down on shrieks. The TA kept pulling up more and more videos from around the world, all of them showing the dead pulling themselves from their graves and clawing their way towards the living people filming them.

Silence fell over the class when the last clip ended and as one the students shot to their feet. The entire room was a cacophony of screams and the sound of stamping feet as people dove for their phones and their bags, calling loved ones and emergency services alike.

Aaron didn't waste any time with his phone or his bag, just ducked under outstretched arms and ran as fast as he could back to the tower. He saw Andrew’s car parked in the lot next to Matt’s truck. Allison’s little silver car was nowhere to be seen but, if he remembered her bitching correctly, she was on the other side of campus this early in the morning. Aaron realized belatedly that leaving his bag meant leaving his keys and paced outside, waiting for one of the other students to come out or go in. He didn't have to wait long.

“Andrew wait a minute!” Josten’s voice was audible even through the thick doors. He sounded exasperated, agitated and stretched too thin. He sounded scared. “Aaron is fine, ok? I'm sure he's on his way back now!”

Aaron’s twin must have said something back but the bang of the door being thrown open drowned him out. Andrew’s eyes met his, the briefest flash of relief lighting them up before the blankness swallowed him up again. Aaron’s eyes flickered down to the cell phone clenched in Andrew’s fist. He’d been calling him, been worried about Aaron. Aaron didn't really know what to do with that so he squashed the rush of warmth it gave him down mercilessly.

“I left my bag,” Aaron said lamely, edging inside. He made sure no part of his body brushed against Andrew’s on the way past. “My phone was in it.”

Josten rolled his eyes at the pair of them, following them up the stairs and back to the Foxes’ hallway. Aaron could hear Matt and Dan arguing from his brother’s room, shocked that Andrew had let them into his space. A quick glance at Josten told him whose idea it had been.

Kevin was there also, curled up in an armchair and staring at his phone with a horrified expression. Nicky was pacing by the windows, too pale and quiet. His eyes shot up as they entered and the smile he tried to send Aaron would have been more at home on a corpse. His cousin was across the room in three strides, scooping Aaron up into a hug that made his bones grind together uncomfortably.

“Where are the others?” he managed to ask, fighting the urge to hug Nicky back, lean into his cousin’s space and let him prop himself up on Aaron. He looked like he needed it. Aaron didn’t know why he couldn’t.

It was the grief, he decided. There was genuine grief in Nicky’s eyes, turning them flat and dull as he stared down at his phone. Checking his messages, maybe? Waiting for a call from Erik? It hit Aaron suddenly like a racquet to the gut. Erik was in Germany and Nicky was here. In the mass panic surely about to erupt, no one was going to be getting in or out of the country and, even when the dust settled, America was sure to keep its borders shut.

Aaron felt something like anger and sadness settle in his stomach. Erik had been due to visit in a little less than a week, something about his birthday and their anniversary. Aaron hadn’t been listening but now he wished he had. He wished he’d listened to everything Nicky had told him about his boyfriend, if only because Nicky would need someone to remind him.

The others were still talking, voices high and panicked. Matt was pacing back and forth, Dan and Neil both trying to stop him from wearing a hole in the carpet. Aaron’s twin had retreated to the window sill to sit and smoke and keep watch. There was a constant stream of voices from the hall, screaming and angry cursing mixed with slamming doors. One voice in particular stood out.

“Move you little fuckers! Now!” 

Wymack was an imposing figure when he wanted to be, blocking the door with his broad shoulders as he ushered a harassed looking Allison and Renee in behind him. His eyes scanned their faces, counting them off one by one until he was sure they were safe. His eyes lingered a bare second longer on Kevin and then they were moving on.

The door closed with a click and suddenly the noise was gone, swallowed up in the reality that they were all together again - crisis averted, for now anyway.

Aaron shouldn't have been surprised that it was Nicky who asked first, voice shaking, “What do we do now?”

He also shouldn't have been surprised when Neil answered. “We run. We need to find somewhere safe to hole up until we figure out what this is, how it spreads, and what everyone plans to do about it.” He sounded so matter of fact, like a comic book come to life was something his psycho mother had prepared him for. Fuck, maybe she had.

“We need food, shelter, water, for starters.” Neil was ticking it all off on his fingers, glancing back at Andrew as if asking for suggestions. He must have found some. “Medical supplies and weapons. We’ll go to Columbia first, gather what we can from the house and then-”

“Bee.” It was the first thing Andrew had said since Aaron had shown up safe. He should have known. Betsy Dobson was like a mother to Andrew, the only one he’d ever had who hadn't hurt him in some vital way, and there was no way he'd leave her behind.

“Betsy is in Reddin,” Wymack said, already shaking his head. “I know your car is fast but we don't even know if it's safe to use the roads. Anything could be out there, Andrew. That's a lot of empty space between here and there.” _And no one to help you if things went sour_ went unsaid.

Aaron could have told him not to waste his breath. Andrew would go no matter what the risk. That was who he was. Andrew was already off the window sill and pocketing his keys.

Aaron expected Neil to try and talk him out of it, lodge some kind of protest, clearly they all did. But all he did was follow Andrew to the door, exchange one of their long unfathomable looks and bend just slightly to kiss Andrew goodbye. They exchanged some words too, just before the door shut behind Aaron’s twin, but he wasn't close enough to hear them.

Andrew didn't look back at him.

In the corner, Nicky started sniffling again.

***

Aaron was trying to remember that Neil was keeping them alive, he was even remembering to be grateful for it most of the time. But it was hard. Neil’s temper was stretching thin, between the bickering and the complaining and, worst of all, Andrew’s continued absence. It was wearing on Aaron as well. 

Cell service had inexplicably gone down just hours after the first wave of infected had risen, cutting off communication with anyone who wasn't right next to you. Neil hadn't taken it well. Neither had Nicky.

Aaron had found himself relegated to being Nicky’s keeper, making sure his cousin ate and slept and kept up. They were mostly living out of their backpacks, camping when Neil deemed it safe enough to stop for the night. The house in Columbia had been a bust, empty since the last time they’d stayed the weekend. Neil had been quick to strip the closets and cabinets of medicine and spare clothes and then hustle them all off to the backroads and woods they’d been haunting since the news broke.

The cities were dangerous, he explained. Too many looters and panicked people running around. Someone would get hurt. It was better to lie low, let the first wave crest and break before they moved in to scavenge what was left.

“People panic and they don't think long term when they're panicking,” he said one night, dividing up trail mix and protein bars. “They go for the fresh food and the guns and the ammo, anything that might help them now. They aren't thinking about what’s going to happen when the bullets run out and the food rots.”

He was holding it together well, Aaron thought. His hands were barely shaking and, if you didn't look too closely at his eyes and the circles under them, he looked calm and poised, like keeping his makeshift family alive in an apocalypse was just another Tuesday night.

Unfortunately they all knew him better than that. Abby, who’d arrived at the tower just after Andrew had left, kept fussing at him to eat a bit more, sleep a little longer. Neil was going to snap, Aaron knew, he just didn't know when. He found himself hoping that when Neil exploded, he didn't take too much of his frustration out on the nurse. She was just trying to help in the only way she knew how.

They slept in a pile now, curled against each other as much for warmth as for the knowledge that, at least, there was someone at their backs who would defend them. Aaron found himself cradled to Nicky’s side most nights, his cousin tucked around him like Nicky would keep him safe by sheer force of will. Kevin had taken to sleeping with them too, his broad back filling Aaron’s view every night before he closed his eyes.

He always woke up when Kevin took his turn at watch, relieving Matt in the early hours of the morning. Neil never let anyone relieve him and they'd all given up trying. Kevin would stir first, take a few deep shuddering breaths, curl his fingers into tight fists, pull himself together in the space of a blink, and then he’d be gone.

Aaron usually closed his eyes, ignored the sounds of Kevin’s silent panic in favor of his own. But sometimes, just sometimes, when Kevin didn't get up right away, when his breath seemed to be sawing out of his chest in painful heaves, Aaron would reach out. He’d tap two fingers on the back of Kevin’s hand in a slow, steady rhythm, in time with his own heartbeat pounding in his wrists. Kevin would turn his hand over, grip Aaron’s fingers for the barest second and then he'd be gone, leaving Aaron to tuck his hand into his chest and resolutely not think about it until it happened again.

Aaron spent a lot of time not thinking about things. He didn’t think about his twin, alone and so far away from them all. He didn’t think about his friends, the few he’d had outside the Foxes, and where they might be now and if they were alive or dead or so much worse. He didn’t think about Katelyn and how, broken up though they might be, she was still his friend and how much she hated violence of any kind. Aaron crammed it all down into a box and buried it with the rest of the crap he never wanted to think about again. It was the only way to survive.

Neil was getting antsy. He wouldn’t tell anyone what he saw when he took his patrols at night, moving out and around in endless circles until the sun rose, but they knew him well enough to know that it wasn’t good.

It all came to a head about a week after the world ended.

One minute Aaron had been sleeping, Nicky’s snores whistling in his ear while Kevin blocked the wind from hitting him, and the next the camp was on fire. Aaron had never been a quick waker but the stress of their new reality had changed them all in strange ways. He rolled and lurched to his feet, fumbling for the bat Neil had pressed into his hands a week ago. Nicky was there to give it to him, clutching a butcher knife in shaking hands.

All around them was chaos. Renee was a blur, darting here and there, dancing between lumbering figures and the spray of rotten blood. Neil was her smaller shadow, filling the spaces she couldn’t reach with carefully controlled violence. Allison, Dan and Matt were a tightly compressed ball on the other side of the fire, fending off grasping fingers with lead pipes and a very battered exy raquet. Wymack and Abby were nowhere to be seen.

Aaron didn’t have time to worry about them. There were more zombies - _zombies_ , a hysterical part of his mind screamed - pulling themselves free of the thick underbrush surrounding the camp and coming right toward his little group. Aaron pulled Nicky and Kevin around, putting them back to back in a loose triangle. Thankfully they got the gist and didn’t fight him, the three of them staring grimly out at the slavering mouths and decaying fingers clawing towards them.

Kevin moved first, bringing his own bat up and around fast and hard like he used to swing his racquet. The reach was a little shorter than he was used to, caving the nearest monster’s skull in instead of taking its head off, but it got the job done. Aaron and Nicky exchanged grim looks and then they were in the fray, striking hard and fast, never moving more than a few feet from each other. It was almost like being back on the court again.

Then, as fast as it had started, it was over. Their campsite was a muddy pit of curdled blood and gore, bodies piled like logs around the fire. Neil was already picking through them, making sure the heads were destroyed or detached. Matt was doing a headcount.

“Where’s Coach?” Kevin’s voice was strained. Neil paused, hand fisted in the brittle hair of a corpse Nicky hadn’t fully decapitated. His face was a blank mask.

“We got separated,” he said finally, wiping his knife on his pants. “We wandered right into this mess and he and Abby went one way and I went another.” Dan was sniffling, her face buried in Matt’s shoulder, while Kevin looked like he’d been shot. Aaron pressed their arms together briefly as Nicky put his arm around the other man’s shoulders.

“They could still find us.” Renee was a soothing balm over them all, her soft voice a welcome relief from the horror of a few minutes before. She was picking her way around camp too, gathering up their things and what supplies weren’t ruined in the bloodbath. She stopped in front of Neil and they seemed to be having an argument with their eyes. Whatever it was about, she clearly won.

“We have to move on,” she said, breaking her stare off with Neil. “This was reckless, staying in one place so long.” She held out backpacks and duffles to their owners. Neil was doing something by a tree, hacking at the bark with his knife.

“We can’t leave!” Matt protested, looking around at them all. “What about Coach and Abby? What about _Andrew_?” His eyes fixed on Aaron. “You gonna just leave your brother out here to die?”

Aaron wasn’t aware that he had moved until he felt Nicky’s arms around him, holding him back. Matt was looking up at him from his sprawl in the mud, one hand cradling his face. Dan looked like she wanted to jump him but a glance at Renee’s stormy face held her back.

“We don’t have time for this infighting,” she said, every word tipped with ice. Allison helped Matt back to his feet but he wouldn’t meet Aaron’s eyes. “If we’re fighting with each other, we’re distracted. And if we’re distracted, we die.” She held each of their eyes for a moment. “Do we understand each other?”

Neil was back in the circle, moving to take his bag from Kevin. His face was red, his eyes puffy and his cheeks were blotchy. None of them were stupid enough to call him out on what he’d clearly been doing but Aaron knew if he could read the pity in the others’ faces then so could Neil. It soured something in Aaron’s stomach to think that Neil had finally given up on Andrew too.

There was a part of him, one of the many parts Aaron had locked away over the last few days, that howled with grief and anger, that wanted to smash his fists into something until the outside hurt just as bad as the inside did. But he couldn’t give in to that, couldn’t let that screaming part of himself win no matter how badly he wanted to. Giving in could mean death, would mean giving up, and Aaron couldn’t bring himself to throw away his own life like that, if only because he knew how much Andrew would have hated him for it.

***

It was a stroke of luck that they’d found the warehouse. Abandoned and left to rot by some bankrupt company or another, the place was a solid two story behemoth of mostly intact steel paneling. Matt and Neil had carefully inspected every inch of the outside, every rivet and door way to make sure they would hold. There were two exits, large sliding doors at either end of the massive space and enough crates and welding equipment to make it one. The upper level was mostly empty offices, dusty and covered in feathers and mouse shit. But there was also a kitchenette in what was probably once the break room and even a shower at the end of the hall in some kind of locker room.

“Probably for the workers,” Dan said, glancing around at the rusty showerheads and cracked tiles. They’d decided to move through the place as a group, clear out any of the dead that had decided to nest there. So far, every room was clear. Aaron walked over to one of the taps and turned it. There was a terrible clanging sound as rusty brown water pulsed sluggishly out onto the floor. After a few moments it ran mostly clear and he shut it off, satisfied that at least the water worked.

“It’ll be good to get this crap off of us,” Matt said, scratching his head with a grimace. His hair was still sticking up in spiky clumps but it wasn’t usually dried tacky blood holding it in place. Allison’s hair was a dull red in patches and they all had gore caked onto every surface of them. Aaron suddenly couldn’t wait to wash even if the water never got warm or turned clear. Christ, they were covered in _people_.

But practicalities came before luxuries and all thoughts of bathing were put on hold as the group went about fortifying their new home. The second door had to be sealed shut, at least temporarily, and the first one locked and boobytrapped. Neil rigged up an elaborate hook and pulley system to create a loud noise and alert them if the door was forced open. Any windows in the factory were far above what humans could reach, even standing on each other’s shoulders, so those at least were safe. Once the crates had been shoved and piled against the far door, there was enough room in the warehouse for any supplies they might find.

It was the first real bit of luck they’d had in this hellscape.

If only they hadn’t had to lose Wymack, Abby and Andrew to get it.

***

At first, there had been some chivalrous talk of the girls getting to use the showers first and the boys trying to sort out sleeping arrangements but, given the unsure water situation and the sheer level of exhaustion from everyone, ultimately it was decided that they would all shower together, sleep and worry about making the rest of the place habitable tomorrow.

Aaron watched the lukewarm water swirl down the drain in a river of brownish-pink. He couldn’t tell what was the poor water supply or what was blood and he was grateful. There was no chatter around him, no one trying to lighten the mood. They were all too exhausted and heartsick to even pretend anymore.

Gentle hands bumped his shoulder and guided him out from under the spray. They were pale and long fingered, the left one covered in neat precise scars. Kevin. Aaron blinked hazily up at him, surprised by the dusty towel that dropped onto his head. Right, drying off. Bed. That sounded amazing.

Nicky had been busy while Kevin was keeping Aaron from drowning on his feet. He’d found them a room just a ways away from the others, Matt and Dan and Allison and Renee all splitting off into pairs. Neil was perched on the railing just outside the door, the single gun they’d taken with them across his knees. He wouldn’t sleep tonight, Aaron already knew. Maybe it was his penance, he thought, Neil’s way to punish himself for what they’d lost already. Aaron thought he should tell Neil that it wasn’t his fault, tomorrow maybe.

Aaron let Kevin guide him down onto the makeshift mattresses, blankets and soft things stolen from the factory cupboards, and settle beside him. Nicky’s warm body was against his other side, an arm thrown over Aaron’s chest. Kevin’s settled lower, on his hips. It should have been uncomfortable, should have felt suffocating, but it wasn’t, not really. It was nice, he thought, winding his fingers in their shirts, knuckles against their stomachs to feel them breathing. It was good to know that they were there, that they were between him and anything that would come through the door and that he would always know exactly where they were.

Their family wasn’t complete, could never be with Andrew lost to them and - this Aaron hated to admit the most - Neil closing himself off because of it but, for now, it was enough.


	2. Andrew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew and Bee's (not so) excellent adventure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we have Andrew's side of things. Look, I tried my best but Andrew is a tough nut to crack and, my dudes, who has time for posturing in the zombie apocalypse??

This was a mistake. Andrew had been forced to park farther away than he’d liked by crowds of panicked people and it had only gotten worse the closer to the city center he got. Andrew pushed impatiently through the crowds of people clogging Reddin’s streets, digging in with sharp elbows and flashing sharper knives until the crush of bodies redirected around him like a rock in a stream.

Finally, after what seemed like hours of pushing and threatening, Andrew was throwing open the door to Bee’s office. She was sitting behind her desk, eyes red-rimmed and wide, staring like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Andrew knew the feeling. In all the time he’d known her, Bee was unshakable, a solid bedrock of calm and gentle affection in his life. Now, she looked terrified, overwhelmed and - small.

“Bee.” He was trying for unaffected, for some sense of normality in a world gone mad, but he wasn’t sure he managed. Too much of his heart was in his voice, too much relief at finding her safe and sound. Her watery smile said she appreciated his effort.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said. Bee’s voice was hoarse and her fingernails were chewed down to the quick, spots of old blood flaking off onto the desk. They were the signs of panic wrestled down in a choke hold. Andrew wondered what she’d taken, one of the many orange bottles she kept hidden in her purse or maybe something out of a sample pack from the stockroom. “I didn’t think you’d leave your family in all...this.” She made a sweeping gesture out the window.

Definitely took something. Andrew closed the door behind him and edged closer. If he’d been a more emotional man like Nicky or Kevin or even a complete sap like Neil, he would have said that Bee _was_ his family. He would have thought she knew, understood just what part of his small shriveled heart she occupied, but apparently even she didn’t understand him completely. “It’s time to go, Bee.”

“Go where?” She didn’t even sound like herself, just tired and defeated. It hurt to hear, cutting Andrew to the bone in a way he hadn’t expected.

“We’re going to find the others and we’re going to survive this,” Andrew said, glancing around the room. “Is there anything in here you need, anything you want to take with you?” Bee’s eyes flickered to the curio cabinet in the corner, lingered on the glass menagerie Andrew had brought her over the years. It made something warm snap in his chest that she thought that much of the stupid things.

Eventually Bee decided that she didn’t have anything useful beyond what was already stashed in her purse and the small first aid kit from the stockroom. 

She gave her statues one last longing glance before she shut the door. 

***

They’d left Reddin days ago, travelling every day as far as their feet could take them. In a stroke of bad luck, someone had broken into the Maserati while Andrew was fighting his way through the crowd and left it undrivable. Andrew had briefly considered tracking the bastard down and gutting him the same way but there just wasn’t time.

He had his hands full just keeping them both alive. They didn't run into any of the dead until they were nearly to Columbia. It was a small group, only three shambling corpses, but they had nearly killed Andrew before he’d managed to incapacitate them enough to saw their heads off.

“We need guns,” Bee said quietly, watching Andrew rip strips of his pants off to wrap his scrapes. Andrew stopped and thought. Guns weren’t his weapon of choice, too impersonal, but if he was overwhelmed, cornered, his knives wouldn't help him.

“We’re heading to Columbia,” he said finally. “Once we meet up with the others, we can see about a gun.”

“Andrew.” Bee sat up straighter, folded her hands across her lap. Like they were back in her office and she was about to share an uncomfortable observation with him. “You could get there much faster on your own.”

Andrew’s blood ran cold. “No.”

“Andrew-”

“I said no, Bee.” Every word felt like it was being punched out of him. “I’m not- Don't ask-” Andrew stopped and took a deep breath. When he was feeling more settled, he started again. “Bee, I am not leaving you behind. You would die on your own.”

“I don't want you to die with me. It would break my heart,” Bee said with devastating simplicity. She was wringing her hands now, looking at him from underneath her eyelashes like she couldn't bear to see his face when she said it. Like Andrew would hate her for it. 

And maybe he did, a little. It was the same way he hated Neil when he did something unbearably gentle or when Aaron bumped their shoulders together or Nicky left gummy bears in Andrew’s car for him. He just hated _feeling_.

Andrew didn't know what to say to that, didn't know how to begin to process how much he mattered to her. He scooted a bit closer to her, angled his body towards hers. _Open, communicative posture_ , he could hear her saying in his head. “I...cant,” he said, slow and faltering. Andrew took a deep breath, forced the automatic panic that came from any heartfelt emotion down deep, and started over. “I can’t lose you too.”

Because that was what it came down to in the end. Andrew had overestimated his own abilities, underestimated the danger and had made a choice, a bad one. He had separated himself from his family, from Neil, and now he had no idea if he’d ever find them again. _Or if they’re even still alive_ , a traitorous voice from deep inside piped up. Andrew squashed it down with vicious precision. He couldn’t afford to think like that.

Besides Neil had promised. It had been the last thing they said to each other before Andrew walked out the door. He’d asked Neil to take care of Aaron and Nicky, to take care of their family, and Neil had promised him. No one else had ever kept a promise to Andrew, no one except Neil, and Andrew didn’t like the idea of not trusting him now.

The gentle sound of a throat clearing brought him back to the present, back to Bee and their flickering campfire. Her eyes were soft, quietly loving in a way she had never allowed him to see before. Their current situation allowed Bee to be freer with her affection now that there was no ‘professional distance’ she was required to keep. Apparently Andrew wasn’t the only person to take one look at the apocalypse and say fuck it all.

“You won’t, honey,” Bee said, smiling a little. She’d thought it was clever, bringing the pet name out during their sixth day of walking. She’d hovered a hand over his blonde hair, more of a dusty brown now than golden, and chirped, “ _You’re honey and I’m the bee? Get it?_ ”

“And you haven’t lost the others yet either. Neil wouldn’t let you down and neither would David.” She sounded so sure, so unshakable in her faith that they would find the others whole and unharmed. She sounded nothing like the shaking wreck she’d been in her office but sometimes it broke through, like earlier. “Come on, honey, it’s your turn to sleep.”

Andrew wouldn’t sleep for long, if he managed it at all, but he laid down and closed his eyes anyway. Bee should have known by now he’d do anything for her. Andrew thought he felt the ghost of a hand running over his hair but sleep, surprisingly, was already pulling him under.

***

It was Bee who found the first message carved into a tree. There was nothing remarkable about the location, no obvious signs of human habitation, but marks in the bark told a different story. They were shorthand, abbreviations and jumbled together numbers that would have been horrifically confusing if Andrew weren’t used to reading it on everything from grocery lists to good morning notes. He ran his fingers over the rough carvings, letting himself linger on the barely there curl of the letters.

_N 36 deg, W 82 deg_ then a rough design of a river flowing over some rocks. The whole thing was signed with a wonky percentage sign. Andrew could have strangled him.

“Neil left these.” He didn’t mean to say it out loud, didn’t mean for his voice to sound so breathily disbelieving even though Bee wouldn’t think anything of it. He’d stopped being able to hide how he felt about Neil from her a long time ago. “For us.”

“For you,” Bee corrected. She traced the carved shape of a river with her chewed up fingertip. “I dare say no one else could read these.” Andrew didn’t like the look in her eyes, gentle but assessing. She used to wear that look when she was about to make an observation he might not like. “This means he expected you to find them and that he hasn’t given up on you.”

“And maybe something ate him while he was carving it,” Andrew snapped. He didn’t like the feeling of hope churning in his gut. He couldn’t bear the thought of feeling it, letting himself _hope_ and _want_ and _dream_ only for those feelings to be dashed when reality decided to rear its ugly head. He pushed down his thoughts about finding Neil and Aaron and Nicky, even Kevin and the rest of the Foxes, alive and well deep down until not even his subconscious would ever find them again.

Marks on a tree meant nothing without concrete evidence to back them up. Still, Andrew reasoned, there was no harm in following the messages.

***

Andrew was forced to revise that opinion when following Neil’s messages lead them further and further from civilization and deeper into the where the dead lived. So far he and Bee had managed to survive every run in they’d had with the corpses but their luck couldn’t hold out forever.

They were catching up, Andrew was sure of it. With every message the distance between their two points was shrinking little by little. He’d deny it to his dying day but something, some hook behind Andrew’s ribs, kept pulling and twisting, pushing him to walk further and faster every day like if he just pushed himself hard enough he’d walk over the next hill and see Neil waiting there. It was a stupid romantic notion that Andrew had to pretend very hard he wasn’t having. But it seemed like Neil felt it too, like he was purposefully dragging his heels to wait for Andrew.

They didn’t find any more messages in the trees over the next few days but Andrew kept pressing on in the direction the last set of coordinates had pointed. Maybe the Foxes had stopped and decided to wait a few days, maybe they’d even found someplace safe to hole up. Andrew hoped that was the case as he and Bee huddled together miserably in the driving rain. It was a pity the stinging slap of raindrops made it impossible to sleep. The dead couldn’t move in the rain, sinking into the mud until they could work themselves free or snapped a limb or two off. Rainstorms were the closest to safe the world got anymore.

The next day brought with it a scene from Andrew’s worst nightmares. A campsite, wrecked beyond belief, with corpses left where they fell in the curdled bloody mud. For on heartstopping moment, he was afraid that he was about to see the chewed up remains of his family and nearly threw up. Although that could have been the stench.

The smell of rotten flesh and diseased blood was overwhelming, driving Bee back into the tree line to wait for him. There were no tracks to be found, not that they would have done Andrew much good if he had found them. Lying here and there were scraps of clothes, generic things like cotton or denim in no distinctive colors. Andrew wondered what had happened to the people who’d been staying here. Had they survived and moved on or had they died there and reanimated and shuffled off to hunt their former fellows? Andrew was grimly vindicated that no scenario he or Renee had ever cooked up for the zombie apocalypse had come close to being as fucked up as the real thing.

Andrew was ready to move on when a glint of silver caught his eye. It was a ring, a simple band on a thin chain that was as familiar to Andrew as his armbands. It usually hung around Kevin’s neck, the only reminder of his mother that Kevin had left in this world. He wouldn’t have parted with it easily.

“They were here,” he called back to Bee, forcing himself to get up and not claw through the mud desperately for more clues. What the rain didn’t wash away, corpses had destroyed with their shambling through. Andrew was lucky to find what he did even if it still didn’t tell him what had happened or where the others had gone.

“I know,” Bee said calmly. She was looking at a tree, studying the bark. “Neil left you another message. Forgive me for reading it, but it’s much easier than the others.”

It was short, they were all short, but no less devastating than a full page letter would have been. There were no coordinates, no sign where to go next, just Andrew’s name, a shakily carved heart and the word ‘always’. Andrew felt absurdly like using his own knives to shred the bark until Neil’s message was gone like it had never existed. But he wouldn’t forget it, would never unsee it no matter how hard he tried.

It wasn’t what Neil had said. Andrew knew what they had and what Neil meant to him, even if he would never say it. He also knew that Neil would never say it first, not if he thought there was even a chance that Andrew was alive to see it. Neil had given up on him.

It hurt more than Andrew thought anything could anymore. It wasn’t fair, he was _here_ , he was coming, but Neil, like everyone else in Andrew’s life, had got tired of waiting. Andrew could feel Bee’s hand on his arm, squeezing gently, but he shook her off. He couldn’t bear to have someone so close right now when the one person he wanted had walked away and left no trace of how to find him.

Not only was Neil gone, Andrew realized with a sickening swoop, but he’d taken Aaron with him. Andrew’s _twin_ was gone now as well and it was startling how unmoored Andrew felt, adrift and lost. It wasn’t like this when he was young, before he knew Aaron existed, it couldn’t have been. How had he ever survived this?

“Andrew, honey, you’re panicking.” Bee’s voice was crisp, cutting through the fog Andrew hadn’t even noticed forming like a lighthouse’s beacon. She didn’t try to touch him but he was aware of her hands framing the air on either side of his face, directing his gaze back to her. “That’s right, honey, come back to me. It’s alright, Andrew, we’ll find them.”

“Bee-” It came out choked, Andrew’s throat as tight as if there were hands around it. He closed his eyes and concentrated on her breathing, trying to copy the easy rhythm. “Bee, he _left_ and he _took Aaron_.”

“Shh, honey, concentrate on my breathing for now.” It was easier, Andrew reflected, to do that instead of thinking about Neil and Aaron and the rest of his ragtag family in an endless loop of _gone gone gone_.

Eventually the sawing in and out of his breath gave way to exhausted panting and Andrew let himself slump forward into Bee’s hands. She took his weight without question, letting him rest against her as lightly as he wanted to, running careful fingers through his hair. Andrew realized, with a wretched lurch, that his face was wet.

It wasn’t much, hardly more than a few tears at the corner of each eye, and he knew that it was more his body’s reaction to the lack of oxygen than genuine emotion but the shame was still there, lodged so firmly under his ribs that nothing would pull it loose. Bee pretended not to notice him swiping them away.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” Andrew was too exhausted for that and couldn’t pretend even to himself that he wasn’t. “Let’s just-”

There was a rustle in the bushes beside them, the sound of something too big and too clumsy to be an animal coming towards them. Andrew pushed himself to his feet and pulled out his knives, eyes darting around the clearing for somewhere to stash Bee until it was all over. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her hefting a tree branch and wanted to ask her what the hell she thought she was going to do with that but it was too late.

Two figures, more mud than person, staggered out into the dying light. Andrew struck out at the largest one with his foot, trying to force them down lower so he had a clear shot at the neck. If it wasn’t for a familiar sounding “ _Goddamn it, Minyard!_ ”, his knife would have been buried in Wymack’s throat.

“David? Abby?” Bee sounded like she couldn’t believe her eyes. Andrew knew the feeling. Abby rushed past him to hug Bee, the two women holding each other and rocking back and forth while they cried. It was as if every part of Bee that she’d locked away for his sake had come pouring out as she sobbed in Abby’s arms.

Wymack was a solid presence at Andrew’s elbow and he was seized by the strange urge, not to _hug_ Wymack, god never that, but to at least nudge him, make sure he was really real. He gave in to the impulse and let his arm brush against Wymack’s side.

“You really did it,” he said gruffly, watching Abby and Bee still clinging to each other. “Neil said you would but, well, none of us thought you’d make it this far.” Wymack’s gaze was somber when he looked down at Andrew but there was a spark of pride there too. “You did good, kid.”

Andrew shrugged and turned away from the scene. He felt Wymack leave his side to go give Bee his own hug, felt the nearly phantom touch of Abby’s hand on his arm and let them all revel in being alive and together as long as he could.

“Where are the others?” he asked when he couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Neil and my family?”

“I don’t know,” Wymack said grimly. “But I know where they were headed.”


	3. Aaron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Aaron settles into life and has some tough conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the long gap, I've been struggling with this chapter and Andrew's for a long time. I'm still not 100% happy with it but I'm tired of looking at it!

It didn’t seem possible that Aaron could already be used to his new life but he had settled into a routine so quickly it frightened him. He woke every morning just as the sun was peeking in, wiggled out of Nicky’s grip, exchanged grim nods with whoever was on guard duty (usually Neil) and went to help Renee with breakfast.

Cooking was supposed to be one of the chores that everyone took a turn at but it didn’t take long at all to figure out that no one but Renee and Nicky really knew how. They shared the responsibility, graciously saving the others from having to eat Kevin’s salt soup ever again.

“Good morning, Aaron.” Renee sounded tired, her faded hair hanging limp around her slumped. shoulders. Aaron wondered if she was coming off of a night of guard duty before he remembered that it had been Kevin’s turn at last watch.

“Morning,” he said finally, washing his hands in the bucket next to the door. It was freezing cold as always, hot water was rationed like gold for showers and cleaning any scrapes or cuts that came from living in a run down metal shack.

Aaron bumped his shoulder into Renee’s, watching her steady herself on the counter. He didn’t know what worried him most, that she stumbled at all or that she barely caught herself. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Her voice was firmer now, hard packed snow, brittle and cold. “I woke up feeling a little off and I’m still tired.”

Aaron chewed his lip, going through the motions of getting things ready for the morning rush. He kept sneaking glances at Renee under his lashes and saw her have to stop and catch her breath more often than he liked. He wished suddenly and viciously that Abby were there. She would have known what to do, what to say to get Renee to take a break and go lie down.

The others came in before he got the courage to call her out on her obvious sickness, filing into the tiny kitchenette in various states of awareness. Dan was still mostly asleep, letting Matt lead her along like a duckling until he could tuck her into a chair in the corner. Allison went straight to Renee and started clucking over her while Nicky started in on dividing up the food.

It wasn’t much, just oatmeal and some canned fruit, but the apocalypse had cured them all of whatever pickiness they might have had. At least it wasn’t trail mix, Aaron thought grimly.

Kevin poured himself into the chair next to Aaron, leaning close enough for Aaron to smell the outside on him as he took his bowl from Nicky. He was slumping a bit, swaying in place. He looked dead on his feet, Aaron realized with a pang. He scooted closer, letting Kevin lean in against him. He gave Aaron a tired smile and dug in, eating like he hadn’t seen food in years.

“Did you get him to come down?” Aaron asked, voice pitched low for just the two of them. It didn’t matter how quiet he tried to be, everyone stopped and stared at Kevin expectantly.

He swallowed his bite and shook his head. “He still won’t come down.” Kevin picked a piece of peach out of his oatmeal and let it fall back into the bowl with a weak splash. “He just...keeps staring at the horizon. Like he’ll wake up one day and see them coming.”

“It’s sad,” Renee said finally. Allison’s arm was around her shoulders, holding her protectively close. “He hasn’t lost faith in Andrew. He loves him so much.”

“It’s been weeks.” Matt looked around at all of them, eyes darting from one face to the next. “Someone has to say _something_ \- ”

“What do you suggest we say?” Nicky cut in, surprisingly vicious. “‘Oh, sorry Neil! Sorry that your boyfriend is dead and all but you really need to get over it!’ Is that what you had in mind, Matt?” Nicky’s voice was choked like every word was broken glass. “Don’t talk about what you don’t understand.”

Aaron tried to catch Nicky’s sleeve as he stalked past but his cousin brushed him off with careful fingers. Kevin’s hand landed on Aaron’s leg, squeezing gently. It wasn’t Matt’s fault, not really, even if he should have thought more before he spoke. Nicky was having a rough time, Aaron knew, nightmares every night and volatile emotions every day. 

Aaron glanced over at Neil’s bowl, going cold on the counter, and came to a decision. Neil wasn’t going to welcome him or what he had to say but someone had to do it.

***

“Did you draw the short straw?” 

Aaron didn’t know how Neil knew he was there or that it was him. He was perched on the slope of the roof, back to the door, and staring at the woods they’d come from weeks ago. This close Aaron could see the hollows of Neil’s cheeks, the bruised circles under his eyes and the sallow look of his skin. He was wasting away.

“There weren’t any straws,” Aaron said, picking his way carefully over to sit next to Neil. The roof wasn’t uneven or in bad shape, not really, but Aaron had never been great with heights. He held out the bowl of congealed oatmeal reluctantly. “I brought you breakfast.”

“Not hungry.” The reply was immediate and dismissive. Aaron had to bite back an angry retort. He knew it wasn’t him, not really, that Neil would have been rude to any of them who came to fetch him down. The last time they’d got him to come down off the roof, Matt had been forced to sling Neil over his shoulder and carry him.

“You won’t see him coming if you’re passed out from hunger,” Aaron coaxed, playing on Neil’s obsessive devotion. It got him a reaction at least. Neil’s eyes flickered to his for half a second. “If Andrew comes back and I’ve let you get sick, he’s going to kick my ass. And then Nicky will cry. So let’s spare Nicky, ok?”

Neil snorted, rolling his eyes at Aaron’s dramatics. But he took the bowl so Aaron counted it as a win. He waited until Neil had eaten most of the fruit out of the mush to bring up why he really came.

“It wasn’t your fault, you know that right? Andrew made his own decision-”

Neil shoved the bowl back into Aaron’s hands, hard enough to rattle his ribs. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Neither do I, but we need to,” Aaron said through gritted teeth. He set Neil’s breakfast aside and took a deep breath. “Andrew chose to go after Betsy and he wouldn’t have listened even if-”

“I said _no_ , Aaron.”

“-even if you had tried to stop him,” Aaron went on louder. He pinned Neil in place with a glare. “You have to stop punishing yourself for this.”

“I left him,” Neil growled. He was fidgeting, toying with the safety on the gun he kept strapped to his thigh. “I promised I would wait for him and I _left_.”

“We didn’t have a choice,” Aaron reminded him. “It was either move on or die. Did you want Andrew to find your chewed up corpse shambling around the woods?”

“Do you even think he’s still alive?” The question was blunt, abrupt. Neil’s eyes were chips of diamond, flat and hard, boring into Aaron’s. “Don’t lie. Look me in the eyes and tell me, yes or no.”

Aaron didn’t even have to think about it. “Of course I do.”

“Why?”

This answer was harder to find. Aaron glanced out over the wreck of the world, the smell of death heavy on the wind when it shifted. He found himself rubbing his chest, slow circles over the place that always caught and held when he thought about his twin. 

“I’d feel it. If he wasn’t,” Aaron said finally. He wondered if Andrew was so sure of his survival. “It sounds stupid but…”

“It’s not stupid,” Neil said quietly. He wasn’t looking at Aaron anymore. “He felt it too.” ‘ _He loves you_ ,’ went unsaid. It was obvious, unneeded after everything that had happened between the twins.

“He loves you too.” Aaron didn’t know what drove him to say it. The exhausted slump of Neil’s shoulders, maybe, or the way he’d hardly left the rooftop since they’d settled, always searching. Neil jerked like Aaron had shot him.

“Don’t. Don’t say that.” Neil’s fingers were white knuckled around his knees. He sounded wounded, desperate. “I-I can’t…” He trailed off but Aaron thought he understood.

Andrew was a mystery, his emotions lost underneath a veneer of carefully cultivated apathy and meticulously calculated distance. But the one thing Aaron had always been sure of was Andrew’s love. It wasn’t the normal sort of love shared between brothers but it was strong and true. Then Nicky came and Andrew extended that love to him too. And Kevin and Neil as well.

Andrew would have done anything for any of them. Aaron could do this for his brother, he could keep Neil safe until Andrew found his way back to them. Aaron climbed to his feet slowly, giving Neil time to stop him if he wanted to talk some more. He didn’t.

“You forgot the bowl.”

“No, I didn’t.” Aaron paused at the door to the warehouse. “You’re going to bring it back down when you come eat dinner, then you’re going to shower and sleep. I’ll keep watch for Andrew tonight.”

Neil might have protested, maybe even thrown the bowl back at Aaron with a suggestion of where he could stick it, but Aaron shut the door on whatever he might have said.

***

“S’quiet tonight.” Aaron turned sharply, his bat in his hand and raised to swing before he recognized the voice. To his credit, Nicky just gave him a tired smile and settled on the edge of the roof next to him. “Sorry, didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“It’s not your fault,” Aaron said softly, easing back down. “I’m jumpy lately.” 

And he was. Sleeping was hard now, all of Aaron’s senses on high alert and keyed in to even the slightest noise. He’d woken up in a panic the other day when Nicky stopped snoring in his ear. He wondered, sickly, if this was what it was like to be Andrew, awake and ready for violence in an instant.

“We all are,” Nicky allowed. The moonlight, weak and watery, washed him out, made his cousin seem like a ghost of himself. Maybe it wasn’t just the moon, Aaron thought with a pang. Nicky didn’t talk about Erik much, not after the first few days, but Aaron knew he was heartbroken.

Aaron was about to say something, anything, to break the pensive silence but Nicky beat him to it. “Do you really think Andrew’s coming back to us?”

Unlike when Neil asked him, Aaron could hear the naked fear and hope in Nicky’s voice. He wasn’t asking because he was trying to test Aaron or figure something out, Nicky was asking because he wanted to know.

“I think,” Aaron said slowly, weighing his words carefully now that he had the chance to. “I think that Andrew will never stop trying to find us. He’s alive, Nic, I would know if he wasn’t.”

“You really believe that?” Nicky wasn’t trying to be cruel, Aaron knew, but it still stung. He sighed, trampling his temper down hard.

“Look, I might not have known Andrew my whole life but I know I missed him. Even before I knew he existed, I knew something was missing.” Aaron bit down the urge to chew his nails. It was a nervous habit that Tilda had done her best to beat out of him and the idea of starting it up again made his stomach hurt. “I know it sounds fucking stupid but I can’t explain it. I can only feel it.”

Nicky was looking at him in the same carefully affectionate way he always had, even when Aaron hadn’t deserved it. “I love you, you know.” Nicky sounded raw, scraped out and hollow. “I love you both. You’re my - my boys. And if you say Andrew’s out there, then I believe you.”

Aaron swallowed hard, blinking out into the night. His eyes burned as he said, “You too, Nic. You too.”

***

Things should have been getting better. Things should have been settling down. But, like it always did whenever Aaron decided to get complacent, life got one more kick in.

‘You’re what?!’ Aaron stared at Kevin across the table. The others had fallen completely silent, watching the two of them warily.

‘Going after Andrew and my dad.’ Kevin sounded so sure, confident like he hadn’t been since Palmetto. ‘I’ll find them, I swear.’

‘I don’t give a fuck about your promises! Why the hell would you do this? You’re not going to find them, the world out there is too big and too wild.’ Aaron could hear the hysteria in his own voice and he hated it. ‘Kevin, you’ll die.’

Kevin’s face was pinched, the skin around his eyes bruised and he just looked tired, so tired. Aaron wanted to wrap him in blankets and bundle him away in their room where nothing would ever hurt him again. Jesus, what the hell was wrong with him?

‘Kevin.’ Dan’s voice shook. ‘Kevin, you can’t. They- Coach and Abby… They’re gone, Kevin.’ They were all kind enough not to say that Andrew was probably dead too, at least not in front of Aaron and Nicky.

Matt stood up, shook his head. ‘If you go, I'm going with you.’

‘And me.’ Allison shrugged when they all turned to look at her. Her dirty face was defiant. ‘I’m not going to just sit around waiting to die. If I die, I’m dying finding Coach.’

Kevin smiled but Aaron could see the cracks in it. ‘I can’t let you do that. Either of you.’

The uproar was instant.

‘Why the fuck not?’ Allison yelled. She stood up, paced the length of the small room. ‘You can’t keep me here and you sure as fuck won’t be able to keep Neil here once he finds out what you’re doing!’

‘Neil can’t know.’ Kevin’s tone was absolute. ‘He’d try to come with me and he’s exhausted. He’d be nothing but a liability.’

‘ _And you won’t be_?’ Aaron knew he was being cruel but he couldn’t help it. His chest hurt at the thought of Kevin leaving, of splitting their family even further. ‘You can barely sleep for nightmares, Kevin. How are you going to take care of yourself out there?’

‘I’m done talking about this.’ Kevin just held his hands up when the others tried to speak again. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow morning. And that’s that.’

***

Aaron wasn’t an idiot. He knew Kevin had absolutely no intentions of leaving when he said he was. He managed to avoid their room that night, lounging around downstairs until he heard the telltale creak of footsteps on the stairs.

‘You’re an idiot,’ Aaron said, pitching his voice low enough not to bounce off the high ceilings. Kevin only hesitated for a second before walking over to him.

‘Aaron-’

‘I’m not finished.’ Aaron covered his face with his hands and sighed. ‘You’re so stupid and noble and- and I hate you for doing this. For going at all and for sneaking out so no one can go with you. I fucking hate you.’

‘I know.’ Kevin sounds so unbearably gentle. His hands come to rest on Aaron’s shoulders, squeezing gently. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. I'm trying to help.’

‘I know.’ And he did know. But that didn’t mean he had to like it. Aaron let himself hold Kevin’s wrists, let himself cling like Kevin was the only solid thing left in the world.

‘I don’t want you to go.’ Aaron hated how his voice shook. He swallowed hard around the lump in his throat and closed his eyes.

‘Hey,’ Kevin said softly. His thumb rubbed across Aaron’s collarbone. ‘I’m coming back. And I'm bringing Andrew with me.’

Aaron could have started bawling right then and there. ‘What if you don’t?’ He hated himself for even thinking it. ‘What if I lose you too?’ And since when had that become such a terrifying idea?

‘Come here.’ Kevin hadn’t hugged a lot of people in his life and it showed. His arms around Aaron were awkward, hovering rather than pressing him close. Aaron buried his face in Kevin’s shirt anyway and tried to soak in the warmth of him.

Kevin’s voice seemed like it was coming from all around him when he said, ‘Aaron, I promise I'm coming home, ok? I’m not leaving you.’

Aaron tried to believe him.


	4. Andrew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Andrew and his group hit a snag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, not 100% happy but I'm tired of looking at it!

Andrew lead his weary group through more tangled underbrush, heading in the direction Wymack had pointed them. It felt like they’d been walking for days rather than hours, the South Carolina heat pooling at the small of their backs and bends of their knees. Bee was trailing behind, talking to Abby, and Andrew was trying not to look around for her every few seconds.

The two of them hadn’t been further than arm’s reach from each other since the start of this nightmare and Andrew was having trouble getting used to Bee not being right there.

_Stop it_ , he reminded himself. _She’s safe, she’s okay. She deserves to have some time with her friends._

Wymack’s heavy footsteps broke Andrew out of his thoughts. He glanced up at Wymack’s weathered face and sighed. ‘What.’

‘Well, aren’t you a ray of sunshine this morning?’ Wymack scoffed. He lifted a hand, shaded his eyes and peered out over the horizon. ‘I don’t want to alarm the girls but… I think we may have wandered a bit off course.’

Andrew’s stomach sank. ‘How off course?’

‘A few days if we’re lucky, a week if we aren’t.’ 

Andrew wanted to punch something. He couldn’t take much more of this. He couldn’t take the fear and the constant worry that something would happen to his little band, something he couldn't protect them from because he wasn’t good enough. Some of that must have shown on his face because Wymack softened just slightly.

‘You okay, Minyard?’ Concern sounded just as odd on Wymack as it always had, an ill fitting coat on the gruff man.

‘I’m fine.’ Andrew grimaced. Jesus, now he sounded like Neil. The thought of Neil brought with it the same horrible pang in his chest it always did. 

Andrew would never admit it to anyone under pain of death but he missed Neil. He missed him so much and every time he turned to look for him or woke up reaching for him was another reason why he never should have let the little runner in.

‘Just fucking peachy,’ Andrew corrected himself. 

He followed Wymack’s gaze, watched the river they’d been loosely following twist and bend deeper into the woods. Wooded terrain meant slower going. Wymack’s hip and Bee’s knees weren’t what they used to be and they couldn’t risk a fall and worse injury by hurrying.

Wymack heaved a sigh and scrubbed his fingers through the beard on his cheeks. ‘We’ll camp for now. Tell them when we wake up in the morning.’

Andrew didn’t have any better ideas. He turned, watched Abby and Bee wander up the hill towards them and felt a rush of fondness for the two of them. He’d never had time for Abby before, wrote her off as too soft for him, but she wasn’t. Not really. She proved that every time she woke without complaint or killed a corpse alongside them. Andrew had grown to, if not like her, respect her.

She’d earned that much at least.

***

Sometimes late at night, when the silence got to be too much and sleep was far away, Andrew would think about his family.

If missing Neil was like missing the beating heart in his chest, then missing the other three was like missing a limb. He’d spent so long with his cousin, his brother, and Kevin within arm’s reach that not having them there was almost too much to bear.

He hated it. Andrew hated that this- this _situation _had stripped him of his walls so completely. How was he supposed to pretend that he didn’t care when any of the people he needed could be snuffed out at a moment’s notice? It was humiliating to be so vulnerable.__

__Andrew wondered if Aaron’s face was covered in patchy blonde hair like his was or if they’d managed to find razors somewhere. The twins never could grow facial hair. Not that it had stopped Aaron from trying when they were seventeen. Nicky had laughed until he cried._ _

___Nicky_. Thinking of his cousin hurt too. Nicky had taken care of them, raised them, when no sane person wanted them. Andrew had never thanked him for keeping them out of the system. Or worse._ _

__If he ever saw him again, Andrew would tell Nicky thank you. He might even let his cousin hug him. Probably. Maybe._ _

__Even thinking of Kevin hurt. Andrew had to be losing it if he missed Kevin._ _

__Soft footsteps drug him back to reality. Abby, probably coming to check on them during her watch. She had a threadbare blanket over her arm that she held out to Andrew like a peace offering. He took it._ _

__‘May I sit with you?’ Andrew shrugged and Abby settled next to him on the grass. ‘Can’t sleep?’_ _

__‘No.’ Andrew didn’t know why he was telling her this. ‘Too loud tonight.’ He wasn’t talking about the silent forest and she knew it._ _

__‘Me either,’ Abby admitted. She picked at a loose thread in her jeans and peered up at the sky. ‘Sometimes, when the world gets too loud, I think about the people I love. David and Bee, all of you. It helps.’_ _

__Andrew didn’t know what to do with the idea that Abby loved him. ‘I- They’re what is making it loud.’ Even saying that felt like too much._ _

__But Abby nodded like it made perfect sense. ‘I miss them too. It hurts like a broken bone. But I know that they’re okay and that they’re all taking care of each other.’_ _

__‘How could you know that?’ Andrew didn’t bother trying to keep the venom out of his voice. ‘They’re alone with only Neil to protect them. He’s one man. He can’t do it all.’_ _

__‘They weren’t letting him,’ Abby said, still maddeningly calm. ‘Andrew, they love him too.’_ _

__‘I don’t-’ The denial died on his tongue. What if Andrew died? What if Neil died? What if one of them was gone and Andrew wasted whatever time they had left, if not together then at least both still alive, pretending they were nothing?_ _

__‘Abby.’ Andrew didn’t know why he was asking her to do this. Bee was a more obvious choice but, well, Neil didn’t like Bee very much. And Neil at least trusted Abby._ _

__‘Andrew?’_ _

__‘If I die, will you tell them?’ Andrew couldn’t look at her. ‘What they meant to me.’_ _

__Abby seemed genuinely touched. ‘Of course.’ She stood up, brushed her jeans off. ‘I’ll leave you to your thoughts.’_ _

__Andrew didn’t watch her go. He kept his eyes on the stars, watching them wink out one by one._ _

__***_ _

__Andrew wondered, a few days later, if he was going to have to trust Abby to pass on his sentiments after all._ _

__The day had started out normal enough. He and Wymack had left Abby and Bee behind to do a little reconnaissance, looking for whatever food could be found in the densely wooded area. They’d brought weapons, bats and knives, but they were still only two people when they stumbled into a nest of at least ten undead._ _

__They were doing pretty well at first but then the largest corpse, newer than the others, bore Andrew back against a tree, smashing him into the trunk. Andrew dispatched it quickly enough, didn’t even feel the blood dripping down his side until Wymack started cursing._ _

__‘What?’ Andrew blinked sluggishly, the world listing sideways. His head was spinning and he had to sit down. Wymack looked torn between helping and knowing Andrew's boundaries. Luckily helping won out._ _

__Wymack eased Andrew to the forest floor just as the pain really hit him. Wymack peeled his shirt up, paling at what he saw. Andrew braced himself and looked down to see a hunk of wood had pierced clean through the fleshy part of his side._ _

__‘Oh,’ he said, dizzy at the sight of something foreign sticking out of his body. ‘Oh, dear.’ He sounded like he had when he was drugged, detaching from everything that hurt and retreating into himself._ _

__Wymack put his hand over the wood helplessly. ‘Fuck,’ he whispered. ‘Fucking Christ, kid.’ Wymack’s voice and hands shook. ‘Andrew, I have to pick you up. I have to get you back to Abby. Now.’_ _

__Andrew didn’t want to be carried like a toddler but he didn’t want to die either. He braced himself for the slimy feeling of another man’s hands on him and nodded. ‘Be quick.’_ _

__‘This is going to hurt,’ Wymack warned him. He put his arms under Andrew’s back and his knees and lifted._ _

__Andrew’s vision went black around the edges, his body screaming at being folded up and moved when it was already _fucking impaled_. Jesus Christ, Andrew was impaled and he was going to die out here and no one would ever know. Neil would never know. _ _

__Andrew hadn’t cried in years, maybe he’d forgotten how, but this was the closest he’d come since. Wymack’s every step was agony, sending pain radiating out from Andrew’s torn side. It was a mercy when he finally passed out._ _

__But it didn’t last long._ _

__Andrew came whimpering awake as Wymack set him down as gently as he could in their makeshift camp. Andrew’s hands clawed the dirt, looking for something, anything, to hold on to. He found Bee._ _

__Her face was pale and he knew she was scared but she didn’t show it. She let Andrew cling to her arms, holding his upper body in her lap while Abby tried her best to fix him._ _

__It was a slow and painful process removing the chunk of wood and debris from his side. Far too long for Andrew to keep being stoic about it. Bee bent over him, shielding him as best she could while he cried into her stomach._ _

__Abby kept talking to him, low soothing nonsense, grounding him in the moment while Bee held him together. His vision was clouding at the edges, Bee and Abby’s faces going blurry._ _

__Where was Wymack? If he was dying, Andrew wanted Wymack there. And Neil. Oh, God, how he wanted Neil there._ _

__‘Shh,’ Bee said, combing shaking hands through his sweat soaked hair. ‘Hush, honey. You’re not dying. Not today.’_ _

__Andrew wanted to tell her not to lie to him but he couldn't find his lips. Blackness rose up and swallowed him whole and Andrew knew no more._ _

__***_ _

__Betsy prided herself on being strong. She’d had to be, for her patients and herself, and now for Andrew. She dabbed some water over his hot dry face and tried not to sob._ _

__Abby, sitting across from her, noticed and squeezed her free hand. ‘Bets,’ she said softly, ‘You need to rest.’_ _

__Betsy was already shaking her head. ‘I won’t leave him.’ _Everyone else leaves him_ , she thought, _I won’t be everyone else.__ _

__‘You can’t help him if you don’t help yourself,’ Abby chided. She still had Andrew’s blood under her fingernails. She’d washed her hands so many times, Betsy had watched, but it was still there. ‘Bets!’_ _

__Betsy blinked and suddenly the blood under her nails mattered less than Abby’s white face. ‘Sorry.’_ _

__‘Don’t be. We’ve known each other a long time,’ Abby said. She reached out, tucked a bit of Betsy’s hair behind her ear. ‘Don’t think I don’t notice when you get lost.’_ _

__Now was not the time to blush, Betsy told herself. Andrew shifted in his sleep and his pained moan brought her attention firmly back to him. Betsy brushed his dirty hair back with her fingers and shushed him gently. Her poor boy._ _

__‘David will be back soon, Bets. He’ll have antibiotics and- and everything I need.’ Abby was trying so hard to keep her voice chipper. ‘He’s going to be okay.’_ _

__Betsy didn’t like to be a pessimist but she also didn’t like to lie to herself. Andrew was in very real danger of dying. His wound had been awful to look at even before David had managed to pull the wood out. Then came the threat of sepsis and infection._ _

__‘Don’t make me promises you can’t keep.’ Besty’s mouth moved without her permission and she was embarrassed by how angry she sounded. ‘Abby, I-’_ _

__‘It’s okay.’ And she sounded like she meant it. ‘A mother’s love is a fearsome thing.’_ _

__‘I am not his mother.’ Besty’s stomach flipped at the idea. She could never be Andrew’s mother. Professional distance meant- But of course none of that mattered now. Not here._ _

__‘You might as well be,’ Abby said. Her eyes were twinkling as she watched them. ‘It’s okay to love him, Betsy.’_ _

__‘I’m so scared to lose him,’ she whispered, staring down into Andrew’s still face._ _


	5. Aaron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Aaron adjusts to life without Kevin and gets slapped in the face with a revelation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you may have noticed a new tag being added, that was an error on my part when I first put the fic up that I decided to correct now that there is explicit mention of said character's transness.

Things were different without Kevin around. Matt and Allison were furious that Aaron had let him go alone and Neil was so angry that Kevin had gone at all that he was refusing to even speak to Aaron. Aaron expected all of that but he didn’t expect it to bother him so much.

Living in this world, he couldn’t afford to aggravate the people who might be responsible for keeping him alive some day. So he started by making peace with Allison, then Matt. Neil would take some time, some planning, but he would get there.

He knew Neil wasn’t actually mad at him, not really. He was angry because Kevin had gone and _done something_ , gone looking for Andrew and the others. All while Neil sat around and waited like some war widow. Aaron knew it was wearing on Neil but he didn’t know how to help.

He was surprised when Neil sought him out during the night. Neil was pale, his face drawn. He had shaken Aaron awake and pulled him out into the hall, now he wouldn’t speak at all.

“I’m going back to bed if you don’t start talking,” Aaron warned.

“I need help,” Neil finally said. He fidgeted in place, hands twisting in his ratty t-shirt. His hair stuck up in oily clumps and his complexion was more dirt than skin. “I need you to watch the roof while I shower and sleep.”

Aaron tried not to be touched by Neil asking him. He failed miserably. “Of course. Are you alright, you look sick.”

Neil grimaced. “Period. I always get sick but this time it’s worse. No birth control.”

Aaron didn’t know what to say except, “Oh. Sorry…”

Neil snorted and rolled his eyes. “It’s fine. I’ll be fine.” He swallowed hard and glanced towards the showers. “I really need to get cleaned up. Are you going up now?”

“Yeah,” Aaron said, shouldering the rifle Neil handed him. “Absolutely. You can count on me.”

 

***

The night was long and uneventful, as was the night after and the night after and the night after that. Aaron was touched that Neil had asked this of him but sitting up night after night, all alone, got boring real fast. It gave him too much time to think and that was never good.

He thought about Andrew and he thought about Wymack and Abby, about Bee as well. He wondered how they were doing, if Andrew was stretching himself too thin to take care of them. He must have been, how could he not? Andrew didn’t do anything by halves.

Worse than thinking about his twin was thinking about Kevin.

Kevin was unprepared to be out on his own, Aaron had known this, and still… He’d still let Kevin go. He’d let him walk out the door with nothing more than the clothes on his back, a gun and some food and ammo. Aaron had let Kevin go to his death and he’d done nothing about it. He hoped Kevin would forgive him, somehow.

The thought of Kevin being dead opened something in his chest, an acid wash from behind his sternum, and made him feel sick. Aaron tried to will the thoughts away but they just kept coming.

_You should have gone with him, he needed you and you just let him go. Pathetic._

**No,** a smaller voice said. **No, he would have wanted you to stay safe. He needed you to be safe, he told you so.**

And he had. Not that night but before. Kevin had woken once, nightmares still in his eyes, and clutched Aaron’s hand so hard it hurt. His eyes had filled with tears and through his stilted sobs he’d told Aaron, “I need you to be safe. Always.”

Aaron hadn’t known what to say and so they had never spoken of it again. Kevin had been his usual self in the morning if a bit quieter and sticking a little closer to Aaron. Aaron remembered wondering at the time if Kevin had feelings for him and not being sure how he felt about that. But, if he did, Kevin had never acted on them so Aaron was free to ignore it.

Until he wasn’t.

 

***

_”This is a dream,” Aaron said, looking around their dorm room. Kevin was sitting on his bed, smiling at him gently._

_”Just because it’s a dream, doesn’t mean it isn’t real.” Kevin held out his hand and Aaron was helpless not to take it. He let Kevin pull him in in in, closer closer closer, until they were pressed together from chest to shins and Aaron had no choice but to drop on top of Kevin on the bed._

_Aaron’s legs were on either side of Kevin’s lap and he wondered if Kevin could hear his pulse pounding. Kevin touched Aaron’s cheek and pulled him down to kiss him, lips soft and pliant under Aaron’s mouth. Aaron sucked in a startled breath, unsure how to proceed, but Kevin just made a soft sound and kissed him deeper._

_Aaron let Kevin bear him back onto the mattress, let him settle between Aaron’s spread legs. This was going so fast but Aaron loved it, he loved Kevin._

The thought woke him as quickly as a bucket of ice water. Aaron sat straight up in his pallet and gasped. Thankfully he was alone or he could have never explained the hysterical giggles coming out of his mouth.

He loved Kevin. He was in love with Kevin. How had this happened? _When_ had this happened? Aaron rolled on his side and glanced out the door. Nicky was hanging out on the steps, probably waiting for Aaron to wake up so they could eat dinner together.

“Nic,” he called, voice hoarse. “Can you come here?”

Nicky poked his head in. “What’s wrong, Aaron?”

“I had a weird dream and I can’t tell anyone else about it.” Aaron sat up slowly, rubbed his eyes. “I… I had a dream about Kevin. He kissed me and I liked it and now I think I’m in love with him.”

Nicky blinked once, twice, three times. “That… is a lot to unpack, Aaron Michael. Since when do you like boys?”

“I don’t like boys. I like Kevin. There’s a difference.”

“Okay, fine, since when do you like _Kevin_?” Nicky sat down next to Aaron, face carefully blank. “Let me rephrase that, why do you like Kevin?”

“He protects us, helps keep me safe. I don’t worry about getting hurt if he’s there because he has my back. I don’t need him to rescue me and he doesn’t try, he helps me rescue myself. He’s caring and sweet and he- Nicky, I _love_ him.”

“You certainly like him,” Nicky said slowly. “But love is a big step, Aaron. Let me get used to you liking boys before we go diving into you loving Kevin.”

Aaron felt, stupidly, like a young child, scolded fondly but firmly over a silly crush. This wasn’t a crush. Aaron had had crushes before and they were never like this. Nicky would see, eventually. When Kevin came back, Aaron decided, he would kiss him for real.


	6. Kevin/Andrew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kevin runs into a snag

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning for description of an injury and all that entails. It's not explicit but if you're especially squeamish, take care!

Kevin crashed through the underbrush, skidding down the hill. He could see a ravine at the bottom, steep enough to break the legs of someone not paying attention. Or, he thought grimly, someone who couldn’t pay attention.

At the last moment, Kevin reached above his head to snag a low hanging branch. He pulled his legs up, scrambled into the tree just as the corpse shambling after him fell over it. He could hear the snap of bone, its furious gurgling growls, but it was harmless now.

 

Kevin waited until he was sure nothing had been drawn by the sounds of the chase to slide down. His hands were scraped but it was nothing that was going to kill him. Kevin was bandaging the scrapes, concentrating on his hands, when a branch snapped behind him.

He wheeled, machete at the ready, only to be put face to face with his father. Wymack stared, a canvas rucksack over his shoulder, and Kevin felt tears welling up in his eyes. He didn’t know who moved first but Wymack’s arms were around him and Kevin felt safe for the first time in weeks.

It took a while before either of them was willing to move, Wymack pulling away first to look him over. Wymack had a full beard now, nothing like the stubble they were all maintaining back at the warehouse. He looked older, more worn. Kevin swiped his eyes and looked at the bag.

“What’s all that?”

Wymack’s face turned grim. All he said was, “Andrew.”

***

Andrew was dying. That was all Kevin could think. He had found them all, but he was too late. _How will I ever face Aaron now? How will I face Neil?_

Wymack knelt beside Dr. Dobson and Abby, unpacking things from his bag. Abby pulled a few tablets out and crushed them into powder. She lifted a makeshift bandage off of Andrew’s side and Kevin almost gagged at the smell. 

The wound itself was a ragged, purpling mess of pulpy flesh and greenish edges. The smell was the smell of something dead. Kevin didn’t know how Andrew could still be alive after a wound like that. Abby noticed his white face and shook her head, sprinkling the powder into the wound bed.

“Was he… bitten?”

“No,” Wymack said. “Impaled. Saving my life.” He took a ragged breath and sat down, watching Andrew twitch and moan. He looked helpless in Dobson’s arms and it was all Kevin could do to watch. He owed it to Andrew, he told himself. Andrew never shied away from the ugly things in Kevin’s life. Kevin wouldn’t shy away from his.

“How is everyone?” Wymack asked, eyes on Andrew.

“Good. They’re all alive. Even Neil.” Kevin swallowed hard as Andrew let out a small sound of pain. “He’s been sitting on the roof every night, just waiting. God, how can I tell him he waited for this?”

Wymack looked pained. “Andrew is tough. If anyone can pull through, it’s him.”

“I hope so. For all our sakes.”

***

Kevin found himself alone with Andrew later that night. Dobson was sleeping nearby, Wymack and Abby back to back by the fire. Kevin had volunteered to take the majority of the watch to give them a rest and that left him with nothing to do but talk to Andrew.

“Neil is trying so hard to be tough,” Kevin said softly. “He’s been waiting for you, every night. You can’t die here, Andrew. You have to come home to him.” Kevin sniffled. “And to Aaron and Nicky. They need you. I need you.

“Aaron - Aaron is trying so hard. He’s doing so good. But I can tell he misses you. He looks for you when he’s surprised, when he’s scared. I’ve been trying to take care of him but… Well, I’m not you.”

Kevin cleared his throat. _Now or never, Day._

“I like him. More than I should. He doesn’t know and it wouldn’t change anything if he did, but I had to be honest with you,” Kevin said. “I really, really like him.”

“Hur’ him… and I cut y’r balls off.” The voice was small, hoarse and weak, but it was Andrew’s. Kevin blinked down at him, stupid smile pulling his face. Andrew frowned up at him but there was something in his eyes that said he was pleased to see him.

“Andrew!”

He was too loud, Dobson jerked awake already reaching for Andrew. When she found his eyes open and clear, she started to cry. Andrew looked so… so lost. It was heartbreaking.

 

***

Bee was crying. She was crying for him and trying to stop herself from reaching for him and Andrew wanted her next to him so badly it hurt. Slowly, painfully, he inched his hand closer to her until he could cover her fingers with his. He squeezed her hand and the look on her face was every way he had ever wanted anyone to look at him.

_Mom,_ he thought, throat tight. He couldn’t say it but he could think it. _Mom, mom, mom…_

She smoothed his hair off of his forehead and Andrew could see in her eyes that she felt the same way. It helped distract him from the burn in his side. He rolled his head with effort to look at the other three. They were okay, they were all okay.

Andrew closed his eyes and slept.

 

***

Day by day, Andrew’s strength returned. Eventually he could sit and even stand for short periods of time without help. Kevin surprised him, pulling all of Andrew’s weight and then some. Apparently he’d taken Andrew’s fevered ramblings to heart and was determined to prove his worth. As if Andrew had the right to tell Aaron who he could and couldn’t be with. Not anymore when they could all die in an instant. But, he decided, watching Kevin try to wrangle a heavy branch away from their fire pit, it could wait.


	7. Aaron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which miracles happen...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I promised happy endings right?

Aaron woke up reaching for Kevin again. He’d been so sure that this time it was real and that he’d come back but his hand met nothing but air. Aaron pulled his hand back to his chest and rolled away, not wanting to stare at Kevin’s empty bed any longer. Neil, curled up and trying not to move, was watching him.

 

“Who do you keep looking for? Is it Katelyn?”

“No,” Aaron said bitterly. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore Neil’s probing silence. He didn’t care about the answer, he was just trying to gauge if Aaron was a flight risk too. “Kevin. I’m reaching for Kevin.”

There was only silence after that. Aaron kept his eyes closed, not afraid of Neil’s reaction but too tired to deal with it. There was a rustle of clothes as Neil settled next to him. “I miss him too.”

It was a compromise. “I know. It’s different. I miss him like you miss Andrew.”

Neil blinked. “How much time did I spend on that roof?” He reached out and stopped Aaron from getting up. “I’m kidding! Just… When?”

“Since he started saving my life all the damn time,” Aaron said, already tired of explaining this. “He’s safe, solid. I can lean on him.”

Something in Neil’s eyes went soft then dimmed. “Yeah… I know what you mean.” He reached out again, tentative this time, to pat Aaron’s arm. “It’s going to be okay. Kevin is strong and smart, he’ll be okay.”

They were hollow words, platitudes. Neil had no way of knowing if Kevin would be okay, the world was too wide and wild now to know for sure. But, Aaron realized, he had faith. He had faith in Kevin and in Andrew.

Aaron wasn’t a religious man and he wasn't sure if he believed in any gods but he did ask the universe for a favor from time to time.

_Let them find each other, let them be safe. Please, we need them. **I** need them._

***

Something shifted in that week Neil was forced off the roof. He still spent more nights than was healthy up there but he didn’t spend every waking moment on the roof either. He ate and talked with the others and they were thrilled.

Matt would wrap his arm around Neil and hold him close while they ate just to feel him there. Dan would take his other side or Allison sometimes. Nicky would commandeer Neil at bedtime, pulling him into their room if he hadn’t already escaped to the roof. 

Aaron adapted to Neil in Kevin’s space quicker than he thought he would. When he woke up reaching, Neil was there to catch his hand with eyes that said, _Not yet, not yet…_

And Aaron was there to see Neil’s eyes open and for a brief shining moment for him to see Andrew instead of Aaron. Neil’s eyes would light up for just a second before they dimmed and he was blinking back tears. Aaron hated those mornings.

They went on long walks together after those mornings, part patrols, part escapes. Aaron liked to watch Neil’s face as they walked, the lines disappearing from around his eyes as he reluctantly started to smile and laugh again.

It was slow going but things were getting better. _They_ were getting better.

***

They came in the night, knocking on the door like the world hadn’t gone to hell. There were ten of them, Matt reported. He’d left Renee and Allison behind to guard them but he wanted them all there. His eyes were on Nicky as he said, “I think you need to see this.”

Nicky looked at him with barely veiled hope. “No… You… You can’t be serious. It can’t be.”

“I’m not sure,” Matt said honestly. His eyes were tired but hopeful. “But how many six foot German guys coming from Columbia looking for their husband do you think there are in the world?”

Nicky didn’t wait for another word. He took off down the stairs leaving Neil and Aaron to scramble after him. Nicky was fast when he wanted to be and he beat them down.

Aaron heard him give a strangled yell and then Nicky was jumping into - into _Erik’s arms_. Aaron’s knees went a little weak and he could feel his eyes welling up. Beside him, Neil was whispering under his breath watching the scene with wide eyes.

“Erik,” Nicky gasped, dropping kisses all over Erik’s dirty face. They were both crying, sobbing into each other’s chests, and Aaron was _so happy_ for them. “Oh, Erik!”

Neil’s hand on Aaron’s shoulder was shaking. “We-we should go down there. Say hello.” He sounded as reluctant as Aaron was to interrupt them. It was a bit of good news in a dying world and despite how happy he was for Nicky, Aaron missed Kevin and Andrew. He missed them and while he could hope all he wanted that this would happen again soon, he couldn’t promise it. To himself or Neil.

Aaron squeezed Neil’s wrist. “Come on. We need to help Erik. Nicky’ll cry on him all night if we let him.”

***

Aaron and Neil let Erik and Nicky have the room to themselves for the night. It was the least they could do after they’d been apart for so long. Aaron was used to the roof by now and Neil was back to his hypervigilant self, staring out at the horizon with sharp eyes. Aaron wrapped himself in blankets and laid down, watching Neil.

“What are you going to do when he comes back? First thing?” Aaron didn’t know why he asked, except that Nicky and Erik’s reunion had got him thinking. About what it would be like if Andrew came back, if Kevin did. What he would do then.

“Perfectly honest?” Neil asked, voice low and choked. Aaron nodded slowly. “I’m going to kiss his stupid face and tell him I love him right before I punch the crap out of him.”

“That sounds… about perfect,” Aaron said. He rolled onto his back and closed his eyes, trying not to imagine himself doing the same thing to Kevin when he returned. It didn’t work.

“You’re going to kiss Kevin?” Neil sounded way too interested. “I think he wants you to.”

“It doesn’t matter because I’m not kissing him. He can kiss me. I’ve done enough work for this relationship.”

“It’s not a relationship if neither of you acknowledges it.” Now Neil sounded smug. 

“Speaking from experience, are we?”

“Fuck off.”

***

Aaron thought about it more than he wanted to admit, what he would do when Kevin came back. What he would say, if he would kiss him or if Kevin would kiss him. Maybe neither of them would be brave enough to do anything. But, Aaron decided, they would cross that bridge when they came to it.

_Are you safe?_ Aaron wondered. _Are you thinking of me too?_


	8. Andrew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And the miracles continue...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are kind of short but I'm writing smut next time to make up for it!

Healing was slow and humiliating for Andrew. He couldn’t do anything on his own, not get up, not take a piss, nothing. And Abby, being the only medical professional with them, had to help with all of it.

Andrew would grit his teeth, let her loop his arm around her shoulders and let her heave him upright. Then they’d toddle over to where he meant to go, do whatever he meant to do, then Abby would lay him back down until they had to repeat the cycle in two or so hours. 

It was nauseating.

And so was the pain. Every time he moved, Andrew had to grit his teeth against a wave of pain so intense it nearly knocked him out. It was different than anything he had ever felt before. Abby had explained his injury and Bee had tried to fumble through her terror at seeing him like that, but nothing told Andrew how close to death he had been like the pain.

Today was the first day Andrew was allowed to walk by himself and he was trying to enjoy it when he was pulled from his thoughts by Kevin, sweaty and sunburned, falling back to walk with him. “What,” Andrew said flatly. Kevin being with them had thrown his equilibrium off, forcing him to waver between being more open and being his usual self.

“Just checking on you,” Kevin said, holding his hands up. “You’ve been getting further behind every time I look.”

“I’m fine,” Andrew snapped. Jesus, he sounded like Neil. Fuck, he missed Neil. Andrew sped up even as his side screamed in protest. He could keep up, he would show Kevin.

“Don’t push yourself,” he said mildly. “We’re very close. A few hours walk, if that. We should get there after dark, camp out and wait til morning to approach.”

“No,” Andrew said. “If I can see them tonight, I’m going to. I-I’ve waited long enough.” And _God_ , had he.

It had been at least a month since he’d seen his brother, seen Nicky. Seen Neil. Everything inside Andrew was screaming at him to go faster, walk further. They were so close and what if something happened because he wasn’t fast enough to get to them?

“They’re okay,” Kevin reminded him. He looked at Wymack, Bee and Abby and sighed. “They’re going to be so happy to see you all.”

“Yeah,” Andrew said, throat tight. “Us too.”

***

It was very late when Kevin lead them all to the metal warehouse. It was in the middle of what had once been farmland, probably some kind of crop processing plant, and was surprisingly solid. Kevin had told them about the showers and the kitchen. Andrew was so ready for a shower and a lukewarm meal. 

“Careful,” Kevin warned them, tapping a stick in front of them as they walked. “Neil boobytrapped the hell out of this place when we moved in.” Andrew could see him doing that but it was hard to stay so slow when the door was literally in sight.

Kevin, finally sure they weren’t going to fall into a pit, walked up to the door and knocked, three short hard raps and one knuckle drumming roll. There was a scramble from the other side and the door was flung open.

Renee stood framed in the light of an oil lamp, hair matted and long since faded out. She looked rough, Andrew realized, like the fight had just drained out of her. It was a terrifying look on his best friend and _Jesus fuck_ he had missed her.

She surged forward with a strange cry, taking Kevin in her arms immediately. The two of them, never close before, clung to each other like family after a disaster. Renee was crying, tears mixing with dirt, and so possibly was Kevin.

“I prayed,” Renee said. “Every night that you would find them and come back to us.” Renee had moved on to Wymack and Abby, crushing them tight. She squeezed Bee warmly and when she came to Andrew, she hesitated.

Andrew didn’t. He pulled her in, hugging her as hard as his side would allow. He could feel her standing stiff for a second before she hugged him back. She was sniffling again when he let go. He pretended not to notice.

“Oh!” Renee said, clapping her hands over her mouth. “Neil! And Aaron! I’ve got to get them.”

_Yes,_ Andrew thought, already desperate. _Yes, get them now now now_.

Renee ushered them inside, locking the door behind them, and ran up the stairs at the back. Lights flew on in the upstairs and there was the sound of running feet on the metal stairs and- 

Oh.

Andrew’s heart gave a lurch as Neil came into view. He was dirty, more worn, his hair was a tangled mess and Andrew could see the dirt on his body from here, but he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his whole life.

Andrew didn’t wait for Neil to make it to him, he ran too. He ran and they collided in the middle of the floor. Andrew’s side protested but he ignored it. Neil was in his arms again after so long apart. Andrew could feel him shaking and held him tighter.

“Andrew,” Neil nearly wailed, burying his face in Andrew’s neck. He was sobbing, huge wracking things that shook his whole body. “Andrew, Andrew, Andrew.”

“Is that all you can say?” Andrew’s voice was shaking. He pulled Neil’s face out of his neck and down to kiss him. The little sound Neil let out as their lips met would stay with Andrew for the rest of his life. Neil’s hands were in his hair and Andrew loved him so much he couldn’t stand it.

***

Kevin watched Andrew and Neil together with a genuine smile on his face. They’d missed each other so much, it was impossible not to be happy that they had found each other once more. The others had gathered around Wymack and the women, all of them pretending not to be looking at the display next to them. Kevin wondered what bets were being cashed in tonight.

Gentle fingers on his sleeve made him turn. Aaron. His Aaron. Kevin didn’t wait, he swept Aaron into his arms and Aaron went willingly. They clung to each other as Aaron said, “I was so scared you weren’t coming back. I used to dream about it.”

“I told you when I left,” Kevin said shakily. “I’m not leaving you. Not ever.” Kevin took a deep breath and said, “I’d like to kiss you now. If I could.”

“You can,” Aaron said breathlessly. He tipped his head up and Kevin kissed him gently, sweetly. It was bliss.

***

Andrew waited for Aaron and Kevin to get done kissing before he approached his twin. He glanced at Kevin as they parted but he just looked thrilled to his bones, no trace of regret in his eyes. Good. Aaron didn’t deserve regret.

Aaron’s eyes, already wet, overflowed at the sight of him. Andrew took a chance and swiped the tears from Aaron’s cheeks with gentle fingers. “Don’t cry,” he said, softer than he meant to. “Don’t cry for me.”

Aaron just shook his head. “I waited for you to come home. We both did. And they told us we were crazy. But I knew. I knew you were alive.” Aaron lifted his arms, broadcasting his movements, and put them around Andrew, squeezing him tight. “I never gave up on you.”

“I know,” Andrew said, suddenly choked. “I know, Aaron.” That was all he could say as he lifted his own arms to hug his brother. There was more to say, more people to greet, but Andrew couldn’t make himself let go for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is welcomed here or at my tumblr kibumunnie.tumblr.com! I hope you enjoyed and the update schedule will be sporadic but I won't update until I have both twins' chapters done.


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